#just wanted to blabber about something more lighthearted in Camp Jupiter

[f0xgl0v3]

Games played in Camp Jupiter

Covering smaller games that the kids have taken time to play, and the bigger official games, this post was going to be also a Camp Half-Blood one but really like… I just don’t talk about CHB lol.

When I mention something about actual Ancient Rome, take any and all my words with pinches of salt, I try to research a lot but for silly posts like this I cannot 100% confirm that my information is historically accurate. I am not historian:]

Camp Jupiter

Camp Jupiter takes their games seriously. Literally doesn’t matter the game, everyone get super riled up for the war games. Or you’d see the most competitive game of Yahtzee. Staring with the canon war games first, the ones mentioned are listed below,

Death ball; described as similar to paint ball, except wild- using things like various dangerous poisons, acids, and fireballs (however that may be) and is the most deadly. Canonically (as we get the only deathball match in Camp Jupiter classified) is played by launching the balls from mini manuballista, or smaller variants of a type of ancient Roman crossbow. We only get one paragraph explaining it then move on, I think that’s the nature of CJC and I honestly don’t care for it that much. Despite my confusion on how this game canonically is described, I’d like to say my own Hc I got when I first heard ‘Deathball’ in SoN. In my head it’s water balloon fight, dodgeball-esque. With all of the deadly things in these balls that break on contact. It probably is the newest war game after some Praetors in more modern times instated it. The game is very loose, you’re with your contubernium (A Contubernium is the smallest unit in the Roman military, close to modern squads and though they likely didn’t serve much purpose other than to boost morale and like group stuff in the legion I like thinking of them serving a slightly bigger purpose in my Camp Jupiter- more on that in the future) and the goal is probably to make it to a certain marker or something without loosing members or whatever. Because reminder, the war games are just practices of war skills that the legionnaires need to know and serve a purpose to train them and aren’t just silly little games. And as for a cherry on top Ancient Romans possibly played Dogeball akin games- (P.S Frank also mentions this one too but I just didn’t mention that)

Siege is the name of the game we see in SoN and I really don’t have many thoughts on Siege, think that maybe it’s a bit more organized and the cohorts have a lot more stratagem (my autocorrect just used stratagem and I’m not changing it) involved in it. War games are probably a like twice a month thing and are announced probably the week before(? Like the first week of the month the war game for next Friday is announced and then after that the next is announced for the last day of the month, idk tho) and cohorts are given more time to plan.

Gladiator battles; Frank mentions this once and then we move on with no further explanation. I’d think this (and chariot racing among other things) are played in New Rome, and it’s a bracket tournament style (sort of like how Wrestling meets work except also trying to narrow it down until all the matches funnel into one victor? Like those bracket things in like basketball or in the movies- idk) and should only have one victor like I said. Killing isn’t the name of the game in this iteration (they still need their legionnaires-) though injuries are very common and a few have died to it, but surprisingly has a pretty low death rate; probably because they have both camp medics and actual doctors from New Rome on site.

Chariot Racing; the other one that Frank mentions. Also in New Rome, worked roughly the same as in Rome. I don’t have many thoughts other than this shifts Camp a bit and (like from my skimming of some articles-) higher ranking legionnaires and higher ranking families like to have their own horse teams, certain legionnaires take interest in charioteering too. Two members from each cohort are possibly selected for the chariot racing (Two races occur every time, for the fun of it) and compete as usual.

Legionnaires when finally retiring from the legions often do like pursuing careers that correlate to was ancient Roman sports were like. There are leagues purely for different teams within New Rome, seeing as sports are very important (Also if including my silly little outposts hc, they also have their own teams and the leagues have their own stuff and it’s like sports-)

Now, I’m actually good with the list of canon war games and don’t have much more to add onto it, and therefore I wanna get into the smaller games that legionnaires on their own free time like playing,

Swimming; Legion-wide activity that legionnaires like taking part in, whether that is swimming in the little tiber, or in recreational parts of the bathhouse/bathhouses. Legionnaires from not New Rome like to introduce water games.

Boxing and wrestling are givens though they lean more ancient, no dying but the rules are a bit looser. Boxing gloves aren’t used and Camp opts for the traditional method of wrapping your hands with cloth or even just going bare knuckle if both parties agree to it. It’s recreational and not taken too seriously, though disputes sometimes are solved in any method of these smaller games (think duel esque but not actually dying)

Running events; stuff like foot races are really common in camp for freetime. Also doubles as crucial camp training for stamina and strength, plus tag has begun to be integrated too.

Soccer; American football hasn’t caught on too much but Soccer is shared between bother parties. Modern soccer and then New Rome’s soccer type, along with other ball games like rugby, and kickball.

Mythomagic; practically universal. Most New Rome kids grew up on it and will teach new legionnaires that don’t know. There’s a shop in New Rome that specializes in games.

Any type of Ancient Roman board games; there’s a lot and I don’t want to list all of them but this category. Most legionnaires grew up on them and play them with each other. Though it gets competitive.

Yahtzee; have I ever played Yahtzee? No. Do I know how to play Yahtzee? Also no. But it has dice in it and I feel like several Demigods made homemade Yahtzee and started playing.

Varying modern board games; some have caught on but all are mostly homemade except for a few that are from New Rome or families that live outside of New Rome sending them to active legionnaires. Things like monopoly are popular

Mafia; New Rome kids have run with it and it really is a good skill builder for their mind skills or whatever. (I put it in because I like Mafia and I don’t hear people talk about it.)

Note on a future update of the Camp Jupiter map, I have given up on drawing it- drawing it makes it 10x more confusing for me, I’ll just describe things and buildings and I’m honestly better at that. If anyone wants to tackle drawing it from any future descriptions I’d give them go ahead but for now I’ll stick to just describing it all with my delight rather than stressing myself over a map lol.

Also the gaming scene needs to come out with a rpg(?) game set in Ancient Rome with deep character customization, interesting story, and focuses more on the story than combat mechanics because I want that (think Pokémon or Hogwarts legacy esque) also a Pjo game that is similar to the games I mentioned, please I’d froth at the throat over it.

Anyway like I said this was supposed to include CHB games but like- I don’t know but I just.. don’t talk about CHB. I’m more motivated about Camp Jupiter and like talking about it more.

Also wanted to include my favorite board game (Ticket to Ride) in this but I sadly do not think it’s very popular in Camp Jupiter. Also I spitefully didn’t name Chess, but chess is probably played.